Aidan

Activity 4: One of my favorites, Snowy Egret: Size & Shape: This is fairly important, especially if your sighting is through flight. At a glimpse, they can look very similar to gulls, as they don't have any extreme patterns or colorings to distinguish them at a distance. With a closer look, however, the shape is drastically different. Their folded neck makes the appearance of a large lump behind & below the head, and the wingspan is much greater proportionally, with wingspan superseding their size far more than any gull.  On the more obvious side of things, they are also larger than any gull or other seabird. Their dagger-like bill is also an easily distinguishable aspect to them. Color & Patterns: Snowy Egrets are pure white, with no patterns to be seen. While this can be seen as a bad thing to have a lack of field marks, there are few other birds to compare it to that have the same completely pure white, and all of them are drastically different in size & shape. Range: Snowy Egrets are only ever seen in the lower half of North America, and drift down to almost purely Mexico & surrounding areas in non-breeding seasons.

One of my favorites that I commonly see in my neighborhood though, are Lesser Goldfinches. I love their machine gun songs and it's been nice having them as a permanent resident in the greenery of my complex. Here's a few photos I've taken:  

Definitely Cedar!